The Rest
by Nerdanel
Summary: The rest is silence. Hamlet and Horatio, before the end. Mild slash.


The Rest

"I have always had much to tell you, Horatio."

"I have always been glad to hear, my lord."

"Now I fear that I have said all there is to say."

"Why do you fear it?"

"How? As I fear all things. I would hate for my last breath to escape unaccompanied by some syllable of wisdom." A silence."You would be the only one to understand that final note, of course, for you have been the audience to this symphony."

"Ay, my lord."

In thestillness of the sleeping stones, Horatio's eyes rest on the shadows that form the almost sleeping prince. In his perpetual insomnia,Hamlet still believes that sleep means peace. Yet he resists sleep like death, and stays awake to be fascinated by what he cannot do. Horatio would not know had he not been led by the hand through this sleepless night. Led, but not unwillingly. Horatio had seen the hands of a prince, the pale fingers of a poet, the confidently lissome way in which they moved, and he saw how they trembled. He had taken the hand, and only considered later whether it had been offered or not; he couldn't remember.

"My lord?"

The pale whiteness of Hamlet's face appears against the night that has flooded into the room, and his hand emerges on top of the blankets.

"You may leave me, Horatio; I will not sleep whether you stay here or not."

"No, and nor will I."

"Very well."

The only candle in the room feeds off the last of its fuel and collapses into darkness. Horatio only listens; listens to the slight movement from across the room. His chair creaks as he leans into the densely padded back.

A murmur. "I can assure you this bed has never been slept in. However, that chair has been slept in, and the floor has been slept on. I have found, through years of practice, that this bed makes sleeping quite impossible. Which is the aim for such as ourselves."

"My lord, I think you were wrong to fear that you would run short of words."

Hamlet laughs for both of them, as though it were still the easiest thing in the world. Then the laughter slides out the corners of his lips, leaving the world as quickly as it came.

"I did not say words, Horatio. I said wisdom. Come."

Horatio moves to sit on the corner of this bed that has never been slept in, and finds it strangely emptier than he ever remembered. In daylight, he has seen it covered in many thick blankets, in enough pillows for a village of hungry, sleepless souls, all arranged in a fashion befitting a prince. Now all those beautifully placed comforts are heaped haphazardly over a single body that can find no comfort from them. And every time he moves, something else falls to the floor, unused.

"You are not sleeping, are you?"

"No, my lord."

"Good."

Because he needs better assurance than a voice, Hamlet reaches out with one white hand to find the hand of his friend in the bare space that is the other side of his bed. Having found it, he holds on to it, though it takes both their arm lengths to maintain the grip. Not daring to let go of the fingers in his own lest he lose their trust, Horatio lies down on the empty bed, close to the edge. There is nothing in the middle but their two hands, one wrapped around the other, and it becomes difficult to remember who sought the comfort and who is now refusing to let it go.

"Kiss me."

It is not a Lord's command, for a command would not be such a complete understanding, an assurance that he is meant to do what he already thought to do, many times. Horatio pulls himself closer by the hand he is still holding, and, as the darkness becomes penetrable, he makes out the softly pallid face and eyes of Hamlet. Gently, he kisses his lips, breathes his breath, and waits for the natural ending. It comes and, unlike laughter, the remains linger in the air awhile, until Horatio returns to the empty edge of the bed, his hand Hamlet's only constant assurance that he has not left. And Hamlet's hand his only material reminder that he is not alone.

Before he falls asleep, the first to do so in the bed that was made for him, Hamlet whispers three wordsinto the familiar night.

Horatio listens to him drift into a long-deserved sleep. He cries, because the rest is only waiting. For Horatio, the end has come already. For Hamlet, it can only come when he knew it would come, when his last words of wisdom fall from his lips. For he that has never slept, it cannot come soon enough.

All will be silence.


End file.
